All Features
Technology developed by Oxford University’s classics department could help reveal the secrets of historical documents. A scanning device that uses different wavelengths of light to detect faded or erased ink can be used for analyzing manuscripts and archived documents, as well as for detecting…
Tripp Babbitt
Improvement in any organization is difficult enough, but if you don’t know about these counterintuitive truths, you stand to make things worse.
I had long searched for a way to be able to improve service organizations the same way that W. Edwards Deming did for manufacturing. No approach was…
Tracker Handbook by Art Kietlinski
I’ve had the privilege of using laser trackers on many applications. One of the most interesting and rewarding applications is their use on machine tool calibrations. I have used laser trackers to measure machine tools since the instruments first became a viable solution in the machine tool…
Wiley
(Wiley: Hoboken, NJ) -- Approaching the topic of digital holography from the practical perspective of industrial inspection, Digital Holography for MEMS and Microsystem Metrology, edited by Anand Asundi (Wiley, 2011), describes the process of digital holography and its growing applications for…
ASQ
(ASQ: Milwaukee) -- The American Society for Quality (ASQ), the global voice of quality, is gearing up for the 2011 World Quality Month celebration in November with the launch this week of the YouQ video contest—asking people passionate about quality to show how quality tools have made a…
Microscan
(Microscan: Renton, WA) -- Microscan, a global technology leader in bar code, machine vision, and lighting solutions, has released the Vision HAWK smart camera, built for high performance in rugged packaging and production environments.
Manufacturers in the pharmaceutical, food and beverage,…
threeRivers 3D
(threeRivers 3D: Pittsburgh) -- threeRivers 3D Inc., a manufacturer of standard and custom 3-D imaging systems, has launched the LC-2-MACRO laser scanner. The LC-2-MACRO is optimized for 3-D scanning small parts such as dental molds, hearing-aid impressions, jewelry, and other highly detailed…
A2LA
(A2LA: Frederick, MD) -- The American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA), a nonprofit, nongovernmental, public service,
membership society that provides comprehensive services in laboratory accreditation and
laboratory-related training, is now offering on-site advanced…
American National Standards Institute ANSI
(ANSI: Washington, D.C.) -- High voltage… biohazard… wet floor… radioactive materials… the effectiveness of safety signs like these relies on consistency and bold, graphic impact to warn people against specific hazards and personal injury. Six recently revised American National Standards (ANS)…
Bruce Hamilton
In 1985, when I transferred to an operations role, I inherited a production-only suggestion program. I recall that we received 16 ideas that year, of which one was awarded $1,600 calculated as a percentage of one year’s savings. The remaining ideas did not make the cut.
So I asked employees…
Stanford News Service
A readily portable miniature microscope weighing less than 2 grams and tiny enough to balance on your fingertip has been developed by Stanford University researchers. The scope is designed to see fluorescent markers, such as dyes, commonly used by medical and biological researchers studying the…
FARO
FARO Technologies, Inc., a global provider of portable measurement and imaging solutions, announces the debut of CAM2 Measure 10, its newest software for the FaroArm, ScanArm, and FARO Laser Tracker. This groundbreaking release marks the first time FARO has included features for collecting and…
Gallup
As of 2008, the war for good jobs has trumped all other leadership activities because it’s been both the cause and the effect of everything else that countries have experienced. This will become even more real in the future as global competition intensifies. If countries fail at creating jobs,…
Reshoring Initiative
The nonprofit Reshoring Initiative enables U.S. companies to close the cost gap with offshore manufacturing by helping each company understand the true cost of offshoring—as well as the total cost of ownership.
When they combine reshoring with cost-saving and customer value-enhancing techniques…
Ron Hiraki
Recently, I was working with a committee of leaders, support staff, and line personnel interested in encouraging and soliciting suggestions from their firefighters in an effort to improve their operations and service. The agency already had an employee suggestion program that worked well, but…
Wiley
(Jossey-Bass/Wiley: Hoboken, NJ) -- The Future of Value: How Sustainability Creates Value Through Competitive Differentiation, by Eric Lowitt (Jossey-Bass, 2011) reveals what it takes for companies to grow and outperform the competition in today’s growth-constrained, sustainability-conscious…
Paul N. Gardner Co. Inc.
(Paul N. Gardner Co.: Pompano Beach, FL) -- The pH/ORP TesTrode is perfect for general purpose, environmental, aquaculture, or other pH and temperature measurements.
With the tester’s ±0.02 pH unit accuracy and calibration ability with 1, 2, or 3 pH buffers that are automatically…
CSA Standards
(CSA: Cleveland) -- CSA Standards, a leading standards-based solutions organization, has announced the recipients of the 2011 Awards for Outstanding Achievement. In its fifth year, the awards are presented to individuals, committees, and organizations for exceptional service and achievement in…
(Worcester Polytechnic Institute: Worcester, MA) -- Studying the complexities of surfaces—their textures, roughness, and behavior—can yield a world of information in a broad range of fields, including anthropology, archaeology, biomedical sciences, food science, forensics, and manufacturing.…
Editor’s note: IVANS is providing a 30-minute webinar on Sept. 22, 2011, at 2 p.m. EDT, demonstrating AuditDocs. There is no cost to attend the webinar. Register here.
(IVANS: Stamford, CT) -- IVANS Inc. a national health information exchange, is offering AuditDocs to save health care providers…
Steinbichler
(Steinbichler: Plymouth, MI) -- The new COMET L3D is characterized by its reliable electronics and high quality of industrial optics. Equipped with a 2 megapixel camera, the COMET L3D has a fixed triangulation basis that can be used with pre-adjusted lenses. Thanks to the predefined position of…
NIST
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the European Union's (EU) Smart Grid Coordination Group (SG-CG) jointly announced their intention to work together on smart grid standards development, emphasizing common goals…
ACTLean
(ACTLean: Lawrenceville, GA) -- ACTLean, the training and coaching arm of Schuh & Co., has introduced the Lean 101 Never Ending Card simulation game to clarify and visualize the effect of lean principles. The game is available for free download on the ACTLean website.
The goal
The Lean 101…
Vision and Control GmbH
Jürgen Tautz is the founder of the BEEgroup, a research entity at the University of Würzburg in Germany that is studying ways to keep bee populations healthy. He also works with the HoneyBee Online Studies (HOBOS) group, which promotes education along with developing an information database on…
The RFID Network
(The RFID Network: Mountain View, CA) -- The RFID Network announces a new TV series focused on how radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is transforming our world. The RFID Network, a 30-minute educational television program, examines the exponentially expanding “Internet-of-Things…
